So we have 2800 megabytes per second write speed and 3100 - 3070 megabytes per second read speed.
That's insane. Old Cheesegrater Mac Pro getting these speeds??? Oh my Lord.
This is my beloved Mac Pro 5,1 cheese grater Mac Pro if you want. Back in those days it was the
most powerful Mac ever made. But in 2023 it is already showing its age considerably. Let me ask
you one question - if you could only upgrade one single component which one would it be? Maybe you
would just add nvme SSD disk or you would rather choose having USB 3 ports? Okay and what would
you say if I told you that you could add to your old cheesegrater Mac Pro up to 16 terabytes of m.2
nvme SSD storage, get two 10 gigabits per second USB-C ports and even get full 10G ethernet and
all of that at the same time with just a single expansion card? Do you think it's impossible?
Morgonaut always bring you absolutely great offers and news so take it for granted that it's really
possible and in this video I will show you exactly that in detail. The magical card I'm talking about
is called McFiver from Sonnet Technologies and by the way it's not only for old Mac Pros,
officially it's compatible with the Mac Pro 7 ,1 alias 2019 Mac Pro ,Windows 10,
11 and Windows Server, as well as Linux computers with kernel 5.4 and higher.
But as you will see in a moment it runs great in old cheesegrater Mac Pro as well. Also what's
great if you have any Apple silicon Mac, Mac Mini, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro M1 M2 or whatever,
you can take full advantage of the Sonnet McFiver too just by connecting it via Thunderbolt - I will
show you that in next video so make sure you subscribe to my channel and enable all
notifications so you won't miss it. So let's install this bad boy inside right? let's go...
Installation itself is extremely easy, just few Phillips head screws and two minutes of your time.
I installed two addlink 8 TB m.2 nvme SSD disks which I also reviewed already few videos back,
that gives me in total 16 TBs of nvme SSD storage.
So let's shut down my Mac Pro and install the Sonnet McFiver into my
2012 Mac Pro. The installation itself is not any rocket science, if I can do
it then you can do it too, simply slide it into the PCI Express slot, easy like that.
Bang.
Perfect, we are booted back so let's have a look too "About this Mac" and here you
can see as a proof I'm really running Mac Pro 5 ,1 - it's obvious :) Let's open Disk
utility and format those two disks. I will create a striped array of it,
let's select those two and let's call it 16TB-RAID0, let's keep it at APFS
and and let's bump up the chunk size little bit, so when I will look to the system report you can
see here in the PCI Express section two nvme controllers and both are connected by four PCI
Express Lanes, that's interesting, I will get to it later. Great news is you can use one of those
nvme ssds inside as a bootable disk when it's not RAIDed. The Sonnet McFiver is PCI Express gen 3x8
card, whoa hold on, now I can see you arguing that the cheesegrater Mac Pro only has PCI Express Gen
2 slots so it's completely stupid idea to install this card when you won't be able to use its full
potential right? Well you'll be surprised but you will not be limited even by chance and I
will prove it to you right now. Let's measure how fast or slow it is. I will start now my
AJA System Lite test, point it to that 16 terabyte array and let's see what the results we will get.
2000 megabytes, 2600 megabytes per second uh oh my Lord.
So we have 2800 megabytes per second write speed and 3100 - 3070 megabytes per second read speed,
that's insane, old Cheesegrater Mac Pro getting these speeds??? oh my Lord. As I said you will
not be limited by the PCI Express Gen 2 in the Mac Pro and to move it even further I will attach now
nvme disk to the USB-C port, to one of those USB-C ports and let's measure the speed together. I will
run two tests. So let's open Terminal and let's run second instance of the AJA System Light test.
So here we have second instance, USB-C disk on the back which is my CACHE disk and let's run them
at the same time. So as expected the USB-C is 1000 megabytes per second,
that's the 10 gigabits per second, but at the same time when I will also run the second one
okay do you think this is a limitation of PCI Express Gen 2? I don't think so. 3000 megabytes
per second still during the concurrent read and write test, oh my Lord so no limitations. Can
you see? That's insane :) These speeds are higher than if you would connect any super
fancy nvme RAID array to Apple silicon Mac via Thunderbolt. And it's so old cheesegrater Mac Pro,
isn't that insane? Sonnet Technologies do wonders. So let's check one more time the System report,
USBS so on the USB 3.1 bus we have the USB connected nvme disk and in the ethernet as
you can see those two "poor" 1G onboard Intel ones as well as the Aquantia or Marvel if you
want now on speed 10 gigabits per second. Whether you want to upgrade your old cheesegrater Mac Pro,
2019 Mac Pro, any Apple silicon Mac, Windows PC or Linux computer the Sonnet McFiver brings
you incredible value. By getting a single PCI Express x8 expansion card you will gain two m.2
nvme slots for up to 16 terabytes of SSD storage, two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports and on top of that 10
gigabit Ethernet. All in single package. So that's the magic of the Sonnet McFiver card. For those
who have made it this far thanks for watching and definitely check out my other useful videos here.
If you want to support my work feel free to leave a LIKE, SHARE this video with your friends and
tell me what do you think of the Sonnet McFiver in comment section down below okay? See ya...